1. Technical Field
Disclosed embodiments relate to an article that includes a mounted semiconductor die disposed in a molding compound cap. The molding compound cap exposes a portion of the die.
2. Description of Related Art
An integrated circuit (IC) die is often fabricated into a processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), and other devices for various tasks. The increasing power consumption of such dice results in tighter thermal budgets for a thermal solution design when the die is employed in the field. Accordingly, a thermal interface is often needed to allow the die to reject heat more efficiently. Various solutions have been used to allow the processor to efficiently reject heat.
During the process of encapsulating a microelectronic device, such as a die, in molding compound, the die is often placed inside of a mold, and encapsulation material is injected into the mold cavity. Because of the current molding process, molding compound often “flashes” onto the backside of a die. The flashing phenomenon occurs frequently for a flip-chip configuration where the active surface of the die is presented against a mounting substrate such as a printed wiring board, a mother board, a mezzanine board, an expansion card, or others. The flashing of molding compound upon the back surface of the die creates problems in heat management such that the back surface often must be processed to clean off the flashing of the molding compound.
An article includes a die in a molding compound. Because of thermal cycling of a die in the molding compound, where the molding compound and the backside surface of the die share a co-planar surface, excessive stress is formed at the backside comers of the die. These stresses can damage the die or its package such that a lower fabrication yield can result, or field failures of the article can result.